O my chief good, <br />How shall I measure out thy blood? <br />How shall I count what thee befell, <br />And each grief tell? <br /> <br />Shall I thy woes <br />Number according to thy foes? <br />Or, since one star show'd thy first breath, <br />Shall all thy death? <br /> <br />Or shall each leaf, <br />Which falls in Autumn, score a grief? <br />Or cannot leaves, but fruit be sign <br />Of the true vine? <br /> <br />Then let each hour <br />Of my whole life one grief devour: <br />That thy distress through all may run, <br />And be my sun. <br /> <br />Or rather let <br />My several sins their sorrows get; <br />That as each beast his cure doth know, <br />Each sin may so. <br /> <br />Since blood is fittest, Lord to write <br />Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight; <br />My heart hath store, write there, where in <br />One box doth lie both ink and sin: <br /> <br />That when sin spies so many foes, <br />Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes <br />All come to lodge there, sin may say, <br />'No room for me', and fly away. <br /> <br />Sin being gone, oh fill the place, <br />And keep possession with thy grace; <br />Lest sin take courage and return, <br />And all the writings blot or burn.<br /><br />George Herbert<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/good-friday/
